A Victory for China over Japan … on Condom Thinness

A staff member stretches the rubber latex used as a material for condoms manufactured by China's Guangzhou Daming United Rubber Products during a news conference in Hong Kong Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014.

Associated Press

The latest battle in Sino-Japanese relations is playing out in the bedroom, with the holy grail being the thickness of a condom.

Or rather, whose condom is thinner.

On Monday, a court in Guangzhou’s Yuexiu District ruled that Japanese condom company Okamoto must immediately stop advertising its condoms as the world’s thinnest and remove condom packages that say as much from stores, according to the state-run China News Service.

The court said Okamoto’s behavior “violated the principle of honesty for business operators and negatively affected the competitiveness” of Aoni condoms, which are made by Guangzhou Daming United Rubber Products, a Chinese condom maker that filed the lawsuit.

Okamoto’s condom sales have skyrocketed recently, in part due to increasing numbers of Chinese tourists traveling to Japan and bringing the ultrathin condoms home.

Daming, a company founded in 1992 that says it has sold 7 billion condoms, filed the lawsuit against Okamoto in September 2014, after the Guinness World Records verified in December 2013 that Daming’s Aoni condom was indeed the thinnest latex winner. The Aoni has an average thickness of 0.036 mm, while Okamoto’s clocks in at 0.038 mm, according to the Guinness World Records.

"We accept the decision and have no plans to appeal it," an Okamoto spokesman said.

He said that the Japanese company actually started removing packages that said "the world's thinnest" as soon as it found out about Daming's Guinness verification, but some products had been accidentally left on store shelves.

The court has ordered Okamoto to pay a compensation of just one yuan to Daming, a request that Daming proposed in its lawsuit, indicating that the alleged violation likely had little impact on the Chinese company's business.

A Daming spokeswoman said the company is satisfied with the result, because “it lets consumers know the truth.” She added that the lawsuit was an act to “purify the market and meet consumers' right to know.”

“No amount of compensation can cover the negative impact they have caused for us,” the spokeswoman said.

In an e-mail, a Guinness World Records spokesperson said the measurements for the world record are made in accordance with the International Organization of Standardization, which says a condom must be laid flat with its length “at right angles to the cutting edge of the die.” The cutting die should be positioned with its center a specific length from the open end of the condom. Multiple measurements from different condoms are required to ensure an average, the spokesperson noted.

Eric Au, a corporate lawyer based in Hong Kong who didn’t work on the Daming case, says the Guangzhou ruling is binding in all of China. He added that since China isn’t a “case law” country, the ruling isn’t based on precedent but rather an interpretation of what constitutes unfair competition.

On social media, some netizens were calling Daming’s lawsuit a PR stunt. One commenter wrote, “This is a great PR strategy; many people have never heard of this brand.”

Other commenters vouched for the Japanese brand’s quality, saying using Okamoto made them feel safe. As one individual who used Daming wrote, “This condom is really small and has broken several times. I gave up using it afterwards. If I were lying, I would be a dog.”